Weekly Deaths Update (part 3)

Registered weekly deaths in England & Wales 2010 - 2022

Yesterday we came to the realisation that the pandemic was singularly defined by a dirty great spike in deaths during weeks 14 to 21 of 2020, this being a period during which old and frail folk were evacuated from hospital beds into nursing and care homes and put on end of life care pathways. Cause of death during this upheaval in care thus becomes somewhat complicated since we cannot sensibly pin everything on the virus and only the virus even if people were testing positive: starvation can kill a positive-testing patient, as can dehydration, withdrawal of their usual medication and judicious use of drugs like Midazolam. Talk to a social worker and they’ll add loneliness as a killer.

For those not familiar with Midazolam (a benzodiazepine) here’s a little of what the British National Formulary tells us…